Lives in Cricket No 50 - Tom Emmett

43 The Great All-rounder (1872-1877) During the summer of 1876, Emmett applied to the Yorkshire county committee for a benefit. This form of appreciation had started in 1870, in part as a way of encouraging professionals to remain loyal to the county following the acrimony of the mid-1860s. However, it was reported that Pinder, rather than Emmett, would get it, because: It is tolerably well-known that the left-hander is not particularly minus of the “means that make the mare to go”, while Pinder last winter was dreadfully indisposed. He is all right again now, but he did not get well for nothing, and a benefit next year would prove very opportune. As for Thomas, there is no doubt a good time coming, but, in the remaining words of the song, he must “wait a little longer”. Also during the summer, Emmett was at the centre of an interesting argument which said a lot about the Victorian game. Under a heading ‘Professional Cricketers and their engagements: Emmett and Lord Londesborough’, a long article in the Leeds Times described the details of the dispute. An earlier report in the Yorkshire Post had expressed regret that Tom Emmett had been excluded from the Yorkshire side for the MCC match at Scarborough because he had absented himself from one of Lord Londesborough’s own matches in the New Forest. Londesborough then responded, stating that he had engaged Emmett for the match, but the evening before it was due to start, he got a letter from him saying he could not make it. Londesborough argued that as President of MCC he felt obliged to show his displeasure at such behaviour, and therefore did not engage Emmett for the MCC game at Scarborough, of which he was patron. He added that a ‘leading cricketer’ ought to set a good example. The Yorkshire Post responded by arguing that if Emmett had missed a county match it would have a serious matter, but the New Forest match was of ‘secondary importance’, and the punishment did not take account of what Emmett had done during the summer. Further correspondence was received from the secretary of Keighley Cricket Club pointing out that, whether or not Lord Londesborough had engaged Emmett, his club had contracted with Emmett the previous November to play against the United South of England Eleven. Subsequently, Emmett advised Keighley that he had received an offer to play for Lord Londesborough, but there was a clash on 2 August. Anxious to play for the great patron of Yorkshire cricket as he had in previous years, Emmett asked to be let off the Wednesday, and leave early so he could get to Hampshire, to which Keighley agreed. Then Emmett was told the match was to begin on the Tuesday, and he asked if he could cancel his Keighley engagement altogether. The club refused. The Keighley official added that Emmett had clearly accepted the other offer on the understanding it started on 2 August and noted: in vindication of Emmett’s professional character, I can say that for the last twelve years I have had numerous cricketing transactions with him, and know perhaps more of him than the author of either of the letters, and in all these dealings I have always found him honourable, upright, and truthful.